Monday, March 30, 2015

Behold The Lamb!

The Lunar New Year in 2015 is the year of the Goat or Sheep. Many
traditional Chinese celebrate the year of the Goat rather than the Sheep.
However, this Lunar New Year is a special one as Ash Wednesday falls on the eve
of Chinese New Year. This means the year of the Goat or Sheep marks the
beginning of the season of Lent. For the Christian, the year of the goat this
year carries a special meaning when we are reminded in the season of Lent to
“Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.” In fact, the
Chinese character for “righteousness” is depicted by the word picture of a
“lamb” over “me.”

Goat and sheep are used by Jesus in the description of the Last
Judgment in the gospel of Matthew 25:31-46. We read that the people will be
divided as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The righteous ones
are the sheep who have shown mercy to the poor, the sick and the oppressed. The
unrighteous ones are the goats who have failed to show mercy to the poor, the
sick, and the oppressed. The most striking point of the parable is that the
sheep were not aware of the good deeds that they have done and the goats were
not aware of their failure to do the good deeds.

The parable of the goat and sheep is to teach us that what is in
our hearts is the most important thing. The goats represent those who are
living only for themselves and who are trying to be the Greatest Of All Time
(G.O.A.T). The sheep, on the other hand, are those who are living beyond
themselves, seeking the good of others and the Kingdom of God. They are the
people who Sees Heaven Everyday in Every Person (S.H.E.E.P.)

The feasting of the Lunar New Year may also appear to be in stark
contradiction to the discipline of fasting in the season of Lent. But the
prophet Isaiah warns us against the ritualistic practice of fasting as a way to
please God. We read of God’s judgment against Israel in Isaiah 58:3-4:

“’We have fasted before you!’ they say Why aren’t you impressed?
We have been very hard on ourselves, and you don’t even notice it!’ ‘I will
tell you why! I respond. ‘It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves.
Even while you fast, you keep oppressing your workers. What good is fasting
when you keep on fighting and quarreling? This kind of fasting will never get
you anywhere with me. “

True fasting that God wants is described in Isaiah 58:6-7. It is to
overcome oppression and injustice and to care for the poor and needy. But these
are not things that we have to do - they are the marks of those who are a new
creation in Christ Jesus. The good news is that we have been set free from the
bondage of sin and from living by the letter of the law. We are to live by the
Spirit in the truth that Christ is in us. As we do so, our lives will bear the
fruit of our loving God with all our hearts, our souls and minds and loving
others as ourselves.

Jesus gave us the Last Supper so that we can turn our feasting
into times of remembrance of His sacrificial death on the cross for us. The
eyes of Cleopas and his friend were suddenly opened when Jesus broke bread with
them in their walk to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-34). It has been said that sometimes
the greatest miracle is just a perspective change. We are spiritually blind by
the things of this world and by the desires of our flesh.

Let us change our perspective from looking at the world to
beholding the Lamb of God, from living under the sun to living with the Son of
God. In this special season of Lent in the Lunar New Year of the Sheep, let us
pray that we may be healed of our spiritual blindness caused by the spiritual
cataracts of G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time). May we be
S.H.E.E.P – seeing heaven every day in every person by cultivating the
discipline of waiting on God and paying attention to our Shepherd as we prepare
our hearts to celebrate the wonder of Easter.